Unopposed incumbents know how to eat well, travel well and just have fun, fun, fun.

Listen, before you apply we have to tell you that the position only pays $600 a month (plus a per diem of $150 when the Texas Legislature is in session). Still, the job of state lawmaker offers a few perks. Just ask Troy Fraser.

As the Chronicle's Patricia Kilday Hart noted in a Sunday story, the longtime Republican state senator from Horseshoe Bay had no opponent in 2012, either in the primary or the general election - he hasn't had a Democratic opponent since 1996 - but he still had nearly $400,000 in fun money to play with. All of it was provided by grateful campaign donors, including gambling interests, payday lenders and the Koch Industries political action committee.

And play he did. Last year Fraser used that money to lease a private airplane ($74,304.16) and an expensive automobile ($10,550.34). He teed off as a member of a Hill Country country club ($13,981.97) and sat down to dinner at such swank eateries as Eddie V's in Austin and Trattori do Forni in Venice. (That's Italy, not Texas.)

Yessiree, the man from Horseshoe Bay had a great time - simply because his wealthy, well-connected friends were concerned about his well-being. Surely, they wanted nothing in return from the chairman of the powerful Senate Natural Resources Committee. Surely.

We should point out that we're not piling on the high-living lawmaker, the West Texas native who resides on one of the Highland Lakes. Under this state's lax ethics regulations, he did nothing wrong. He's also the rule, not the exception.

The wily Houston Democrat is the longest-serving lawmaker in the Senate; "the Dean" knows how the game is played. He also defends the practice.

"Someone once told me that elections are won between elections," he told Hart. Politicians, he said, must be a constant presence in their communities to be successful.

"Eating out and networking is a major part of the campaign and representing my district," Whitmire said. The sports tickets "are an excellent campaign tool."

Tom "Smitty" Smith, longtime director of Public Citizen's Texas office has a different take: "Lawmakers are living high on the hog at their contributors' expense. And the contributions are inevitably repaid in favors done on the floor of the House and Senate - or more frequently in back rooms where bills are scheduled or killed when nobody is looking."

A quick question: Why is it that "networking" and the people's business have to be conducted at Eddie V's or Segari's (Whitmire's favorite Houston eatery), rather than Luby's or McDonald's?

"These war chests go to enhance your lifestyle. You travel well; you eat well," Craig McDonald, executive director of Texans for Public Justice, told Hart. "Texas laws are loose, and the result is most of the money is spent on lifestyle, not on campaigning."

In Texas, there's nothing new about what we would call legalized corruption, and yet with many lawmakers cosseted by safe districts and assured of re-election for as long as they please their base and with more and more special-interest money at their disposal, they're free to indulge their rich and semifamous whims.

Texas campaign laws ostensibly ban using political donations for personal uses, but it's hard not to be cynical. It's also hard to clamp down on the practice.

One suggestion - which we support - would give audit authority to the Texas Ethics Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws. Under current law, the agency does not conduct audits of campaign accounts unless complaints are filed.

That's the way lawmakers like it. When a coalition of watchdog organizations last year advocated audit powers for the ethics agency, not one member of the Legislature's Sunset Commission endorsed the recommendation. If a lawmaker had to justify campaign expenditures, there might be more receipts for LuAnn Platters ("You want tartar sauce with your fish?") on the campaign filing reports and fewer prime bone-in ribeye at Eddie V's ($48). There might be more trust and less cynicism, as well.